Concussed
by Ahem27
Summary: A member of the team is an accident, and while the seriousness of their injuries is apparent, it is their reaction to a comforting teammate that is most surprising.
1. Chapter 1

Sirens blaring, tires spinning wildly, the black sedan crashed through the late afternoon traffic in its rush to get to the hospital. Hotch sat in the backseat, Emily's head cradled in his lap.

"Morgan, what's our ETA?"

Derek didn't take his eyes off the road as he answered, "We're about 5 minutes out, Hotch. The medics are waiting, they know we're coming."

Reid spoke urgently from his place in the passenger seat, "You need to keep her talking. She almost certainly has a major concussion and we can't let her lose consciousness."

Prentiss moaned at this moment, weakly struggling to shift herself into a sitting position. Hotch placed a hand on her forehead, gently brushing back her hair. "Prentiss, we're almost to the hospital. Just hang in there."

"It hurts," She mumbled, prompting the agents in the front seat to exchange concerned glances. If Prentiss was admitting to pain, then they knew it must serious.

"I know, it'll be alright," Hotch attempted to soothe his hurt agent, at a loss on how to comfort his usually stoic partner.

Emily's eyes fluttered shut and Hotch yelped, "Emily! You have to stay with us. Talk to me."

"'Bout what?" She mumbled, furrowing her brow as if the request was an impossible task.

"Anything." Hotch replied. "Tell me about Sergio. Or London. I don't care what it is, just say something."

Emily's eyes came open, and she stared up into Hotch's face. He heard in the back of his mind Reid instructing Morgan to turn right, and Morgan announcing that they had arrived.

Emily reached up one shaky hand and touched the corner of Hotch's eye. "I knew a man once," She murmured dreamily, "We spent the summer together, in Sicily. Then one day in August I woke up and he was gone. I never saw him again. He…"

"He what? Emily, tell me what happened," Hotch insisted urgently. Anything to keep her awake.

She closed her eyes, head lolling back into Hotch's lap. She sighed a small sigh and whispered softly, Hotch leaning his ear down to her lips in order to hear, "He had beautiful eyes… like yours." She smiled faintly and then was gone, the medics closing in around her unconscious form.

Stunned, Hotch allowed the medics to load Emily onto a stretcher and wheel her inside. He dimly heard Morgan asking where they were taking her, and barely felt Reid's hand on his arm as the younger agent guided him inside. What he could feel was the tiny patch of skin Emily had pressed with her finger, just to the left of his eye.

He knew that Emily had not been herself, had been imagining a different man in a different country years ago. Despite that, he couldn't the feel of a glimmer of something else at her whispered words and brief brush of affection.

 _Affection?_ Hotch shook himself out of his thoughts. No matter what had happened in that car ride, his first priority had to be Emily's well-being. His reaction to her concussion-reduced remarks would have to wait.


	2. Chapter 2- Waiting

The lights of the hospital waiting room flickered dimly, causing Hotch to vaguely wonder when the light bulbs at his new apartment would need changed. Not that he spent much time there anyways, in the empty rooms and lifeless halls of a life lived elsewhere.

With a sharp buzzing sound, the dancing lights stabilized, and Hotch turned his attention away from them. Toward important things, things he knew he ought to be thinking more about at this moment in time. Like the unsolved case, potential victims, his hurt agent….

But instead, he thought to himself, I'm stuck here in this waiting room, with absolutely no information regarding absolutely anything. The decision to stay had not been his own, despite the power that came with being Unit Chief. No, it had been determined that he stayed to wait for the results of Emily's CT because he had been on the scene of the accident, and of course he was eager to determine the extent of Emily's injuries. It was the seemingly endless waiting that took its toll on the insistently active agent.

It was the curious behavior of his other other team members that also played a role in his fidgeting anxiety. They had seemed especially keen on him staying at the hospital to care for Emily, to the extent that Reid went off on a diatribe concerning concussions and memory loss and familiar faces that left Hotch not only more confused about their motives, but with increased nervousness for the well-being of Emily. Of course I'm invested, he thought, Prentiss is a part of the team. It was baffling that the other members thought so much of his involvement that they deemed it necessary that he wait, bored and useless in the case-fileless waiting room, to talk to the doctors perfectly capable of making a diagnostic without him.

Hotch's bland, waiting room expression soured even further as two young men entered the room. One, obviously drunk, was leaning on the other, carelessly dripping water onto the linoleum floor and yelling that he need IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE. The drunk's supporter, oblivious to the other patrons waiting silently, loudly seconded this opinion and shoved his fluid friend into the path of a harried-looking nurse.

The nurse, with practiced concerning winning out over her more immediate reaction of irritation, attempted to ascertain the injury. The drunk man, upon the nurse asking what part of his body hurt, doubled over in laughter so boisterous the nurse took a visible step back.

Hotch's brow furrowed even further at the reply of the less-intoxicated man, "He just needs to be admitted, see, just get him a nice little bed and no harm done. That's what hospitals are for, right?" The nurse attempted to extract herself from the situation, asking the men to take a seat and assuring them that a doctor would be around to see them shortly.

The taller friend glowered, lowering his voice to a harsh whisper. The people in the waiting room found sudden interest in the walls, the magazines, anywhere besides the uneven confrontation taking place right before them.

Hotch waited a moment longer, hesitant, unsure of how serious the hooligans were. His uncertainty disappeared a second later, when a dirty hand grabbed the arm of the nurse, pulling her in with a threatening look. Hotch stood up deliberately, not drawing attention to himself, but making his way quickly to the trio at the front of the room nonetheless. The two men glanced up at his approach, the drunk one sneering at his business suit and tie. Hotch placed himself between the frightened nurse and the men, tilting his head so his eyes met theirs in a way that demanded respect. He may have been forced to wait in this godforsaken room, but that didn't mean he couldn't help someone while he was here.

"I'm going to tell you once and only once. You and your friend are going to turn around and walk back through that door. No complaints, not one word of protest. You will do this now, with so much as even a glance at this nurse who attempted to help you."

The sallow man released his hold on the nurse's arm, roughly manuevering his friend between him and the large, angry man. He had planned on putting up a fuss when this know-it-all, rich looking figure in a suit had approached, but the towering man's glowering countenance and the force behind his words had cowed any form of resistance. He cast one last glance at the awed nurse, and then propelled his oblivious friend out the door.

"Are you alright?" Hotch turned his attention to the nurse, impressed by her quickly regained composure.

"Of course," She answered, "Although thank you for the help. Usually I can handle drunks, but these two took me by surprise." She turned to leave, glancing back once at the hardened man, and then continuing on her way.

Just as Hotch prepared to return to his seat, once again feeling mired down by the indomitable act of waiting, a voice at the desk called his name. "Agent Hotchner?" The receptionist sounded uncertain, as if doubting that any person with such a title could really be found in the dingy room.

Hotch rapidly approached the desk, all thoughts of the minor encounter with the intoxicated pair forgotten. The gloom seemed to lift, and Hotch was inordinately pleased to be the one that the nurse called "in regards to the condition of Agent Emily Prentiss".

As he was led back to the room containing his hurt agent, his previous reservations on the proposal of waiting dissipated. In fact, he thought to himself smugly, without even a hint of embarrassment, the waiting hadn't been that bad.


End file.
